Has the Introduction of Microfinance Crowded-Out Informal Loans in Malawi?

Abstract

This paper uses household data to test whether microfinance institutions created by the Malawian government in the mid-1990s under its Poverty Alleviation Programme crowded out access to informal loans. As in several recent studies, the paper adopts policy evaluation techniques to identify a causal relationship between access to government-sponsored credit programmes and informal loans. After taking treatment heterogeneity into account with a multiple treatment model, the paper finds strong evidence of crowding out of formal group lending on informal sources. In particular, participation in the most widespread microfinance programme has a negative and significant effect on borrowing from informal sources, reducing on average the amount that members borrow from informal lenders by more than 70 percent of the average loan value.